


Weaklings Anonymous

by usedusernames



Category: The Monkees (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, M/M, Self Confidence Issues, WIP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-09 07:08:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20990849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usedusernames/pseuds/usedusernames
Summary: Mike gets home after the events of 'I Was a 99 Lb Weakling'. He's stuck trying to figure out just what is going on.





	Weaklings Anonymous

When Mike had first moved to California, he had worried that it would never feel like home. That was the kind of fear that was almost crippling, because at the time Texas didn’t feel much like home, either. It wasn’t that Texans didn’t appreciate music, but it wasn’t a place where you could make a living off of it. The folks down there leaned towards the practical, physical kinds of jobs. Working on cars, building houses, plumbing. The kinds of things men were expected to do in Texas were the jobs that you could see physical results from your effort. By the end of the day you had something to look at.

Music was no such career. Music was poetry, or philosophy. Though he worked with his hands to play the guitar, he heard the growth rather than saw it. His solid foundation was something that was to him as solid as concrete, but sight-unseen. Once you could get the right chords, the right words to strike deep at someone’s heart, well, that was something. But there’d never been a use for the invisible in Texas.

And he’d very often felt invisible.

So off he’d driven to California in an old, beater car that someone else had had to fix for him.

California was different from Texas in almost every way. They appreciated the fact he wanted to be a musician, there. They understood that intangible results were still results. They understood that emotions mattered. That writing the right words could be just as important as making the right cut on a support beam.

What most Californians didn’t understand was his personality. They liked hugs and kisses even between strangers. They were all smiles, all the time. They were suntanned and surfing instead of sitting inside looking out the window. In California it was his personality setting him apart rather than his ambitions.

But luck had worked in his favor, in a way that it rarely seemed to. He had found family in California. Close friends that accepted the ways he was different and shared his aspirations. Soon enough California felt like home. And distance had made his heart grow fonder, as the cliché went. The things that had chased him out of Texas no longer seemed so crushing, and he’d been glad when he’d gotten to go for a week-long visit.

He was equally glad when he returned. It had taken years and years, but he was no longer homeless.

As a matter of fact, instead of one home, he had two.

Mike got back to Beechwood around two A.M. on a Monday morning. He hadn’t taken the car and had navigated a mix of public transport and hitchhiking instead. He’d never admit to the hitchhiking, since the guys had seemed very proud of having saved up enough to get him to Texas and back. Of course there weren’t any buses anywhere near their house at two A.M., but he thought he could sneak that white lie past his bandmates.

He walked through the door expecting them all to be in bed already. He’d told them he’d probably be home before dinner, after all, but that had been before he’d run out of money.

And they _were_ asleep, but they were also in the middle of the living room, standing up, with the lights on. Micky was bent over the couch while Peter and Davy were leaning on each other to stay upright. They were all wearing party hats, and Micky had a party horn in his mouth that was unfurling a little with each soft snore.

Mike shut the door and the other Monkees startled awake. They made a general noise of excitement to see him and all ran to gather him first into a group hug, then into a series of one-on-one embraces. First Peter, then Davy, and Micky last.

Mike frowned for just a moment before Micky blew the party horn, making it tickle his face. He stepped back and slapped the air, and Micky giggled.

“Am I interruptin’ a party?” Mike teased.

“No, Michael, we missed you!” Peter said. It was so earnest and oblivious that it made Mike smile wide.

“I missed y’all, too,” he said, maybe a little heavier on the accent than usual from being in Texas for a week. “Did everything go all right?” What he meant was _did you guys get into any trouble while I was gone?_ But he had to say it a little nicer than that. Putting it blunt was something that worked with Peter, but often upset Davy and made Micky get squirrely and evasive. Or maybe just ‘evasive’. Micky was always squirrely.

“Micky joined a cult!” Peter declared happily.

“It was _not_ a cult. It was a health club!” Micky threw in peevishly.

Davy smiled apologetically. “I was going to tell you later,” he informed Mike, and Mike knew ‘later’ would mean when either Micky, Peter, or both had gone to bed. But he added, “It was cult-_like_.”

“Maybe it was an _eau de_ cult. But it wasn’t a full-blown, wearing-robes and chanting cult,” Micky said, still frowning. “I wasn’t going to sacrifice goats or anything!”

“No, we were going to sacrifice _you_ if you kept trying to starve us!” Davy snapped back.

“He made you sell your worldly possessions. Everyone was wearing the same thing and sitting around while you signed a contract. It was a cult,” Peter said, determined, and not really seeming unhappy in the argument. “Really spooky.”

“Oh—” Micky started.

Mike stopped him. “Micky, go sit at the kitchen table. Davy, Peter, go to bed.” He could in no way follow a conversation like this after so little sleep. He could barely follow his friends when they did this to him fully rested.

Micky pouted and sulked his way to the kitchen. He dragged his feet and lolled his head around like he was either a zombie or a petulant child. Or maybe a petulant zombie child.

Mike sighed and followed along after. He would have preferred it if the conversation happened in the morning. Proper morning that was eight AM or later. But Micky was one of those sorts you had to scold immediately or he’d weasel right on out of it. He was very busy and very quick, which made it quite easy for him to weasel. Mike pulled out a chair and sat across from Micky at the table.

“We got you a cake,” Micky said sullenly, indicating it.

Mike blinked. He did turn his focus from Micky to the cake for a moment, and he read it: “’I’m sorry I hit you with the car. And stole your wallet when you were waiting for the ambulance. And—‘” he stopped there and bewildered, said, “This is a real specific cake.”

“Probably why it was half off,” Micky said. “I pulled off the fondant that looked like the ambulance. But I left the little run-over guy. He looked a lot like you.”

Mike leaned in to get a closer look. “Huh. How ‘bout that. Well, we’ll have it for breakfast.” Its plastic lid was off, so he took the time to cover it back up and slide it to the side. Then he folded his hands and said, “You tried to starve Davy and Peter?”

Quite frankly that was more of a point for concern to Mike than joining a cult. They’d all joined their share of things, but that usually didn’t include harming each other.

“I did _not_ try to starve them! I gave them food, they just didn’t like it! I eat the stuff Peter makes us all the time instead of calling poison control!”

“Easy,” Mike warned. But his voice was tolerant.

Micky harrumphed and fell back into his seat, folding his arms. He pouted very well, though he did look almost literally like a monkey the way he stuck his chin out.

“Why did they _say_ you were starving them?” Mike asked, changing the emphasis.

“Because…” Micky sighed. “Because I starved _myself_ and...And maybe because the stuff I fed them tasted like Peter pulled scraps out of the garbage, burned it, threw it away, and then I fished it out and cooked it again. But I added salt. That wasn’t in the recipe; it really helped.”

“Micky,” Mike said. He sighed. He pulled off his hat just to run a hand through his hair. “Apologize to them for making them eat food that shoulda been garbage.”

“Okay!” Micky said happily. He started to pop to his feet, but Mike gave him a stern look that froze him.

“Not so fast, son. We got more to talk about.”

Micky plopped back down.

“You starved _yourself_?”

“Only for a couple, three days.”

“To what end?”

“I was tired of being skinny, and this guy, Shah-Ku—”

“How in the _**world**_ do you think starvin’ yourself will stop you from bein’ skinny?” Mike usually tried not to interrupt with this kind of sit-down conversation, but that one was so bewildering he had to comment on it.

“Well it wasn’t to lose weight or nothing! I was purifying my system. I eat a lot of Twinkies, Mike. I practically keep Hostess and Coke in business singlehandedly. I know it’s not a good diet. And Shah-Ku said, ‘an unhealthy body is an unhealthy mind. Flush those dirty sugars down the toilet where they belong! And run at least five miles a day. That way you can sweat out all the nasty **blech**! Stuff at the same time_’_.”

“But you’re eating again now, right?” Mike threw in quickly. He’d noticed how skinny Micky felt even for him, when they’d first embraced. He was worried for a flash of a second that they’d spent their grocery money on getting him down to Texas, but Micky blowing the party horn in his face had made him momentarily forget.

“Sure, babe. Of course. I love to eat! As a matter of fact… Can I have some of the frosting off your cake? I’ll only eat the blood, I promise.” He’d sort of been counting on Mike being home much earlier than he was, though he could respect the rules of the cake and not cut an actual hunk out of it until the recipient allowed it.

“Eat a whole slice,” Mike said, watching Micky warily. They often got themselves roughed up at the hands of kidnappers, spies, ghouls, or the like. But he’d never really thought he’d have to look after any of them hurting themselves. At least not on purpose, with some forethought to the whole thing. They did often hurt themselves on accident, and Micky did it most frequently of all, being so reckless and clumsy. It was the intent rather than the actual harm that made Mike worried.

Micky beamed and grabbed a fork. He ripped the lid off the cake again and dug in, all while bouncing in his seat. It made Mike relax a little.

“Second thing,” Mike said, and Micky made a noise of acknowledgement through a mouthful of cake. “Peter said you were selling your worldly possessions? What worldly possessions?” None of them owned a single thing worth selling.

“Oh, ma dumbs,” Micky said, still around a mouthful of cake.

“Your _**drums**_ ‽” Mike demanded, stunned. He slammed his hands on the table and stood up, which made Micky swallow fast in surprise and almost choke. Mike was looking past him into the living room however, and relaxed to see the drums still sitting right where they belonged.

Micky said, a little redundantly, “Relax, I didn’t actually sell them. I was just going to.”

“I see that.”

Mike sat back down and watched him for a while. He narrowed his eyes at Micky, but not unkindly. He was searching for something, but he didn’t know what. There must have been something wrong—something actually wrong, for Micky to run around all while starving himself, never mind being willing to sell off his livelihood. Even if that livelihood was barely getting them enough money to survive off of.

Micky for his part, stared back at Mike with big, friendly eyes. Mike yelling and slapping the table had spooked him, but he’d settled again right away. Mike could stare at Micky any way he pleased and probably never actually unnerve him.

“Let’s start from the beginning,” Mike decided. He’d felt it important to get to the worst parts first, in case there was something that needed immediate resolution. But it was clear that he wasn’t understanding what was actually going on.

Micky explained himself with typical rambling, and with his mouth occasionally full of cake. He explained Shah-ku, he explained Brenda, he explained that he really did hate being skinny. And he further explained that the only thing that had really put him off it all was that Shah-ku had insulted Davy’s height. He knew that Davy wasn’t short because of his diet or exercise; he exercised often and only started eating badly after joining the band. So that couldn’t have been it; it wasn’t like he’d shrunk. They would have noticed, because “We woulda stepped on him if he got any shorter.” Besides which, Davy getting insulted for something he couldn’t control that way hurt Micky’s feelings much more than being personally insulted over being skinny had.

The last bit relieved Mike a little. He was glad that whatever was going on hadn’t completely stripped Micky of his senses.

“So this was all over a girl who wouldn’t say two words to you?”

“Oh, no. She’d say two words. Sometimes even three!” 

Mike had never met Brenda and didn’t understand this in the slightest.

“It wasn’t anything more’n that?”

“More than what?” Micky asked.

“I don’t know,” Mike admitted. He wasn’t much of a skirt-chaser himself and barely understood changing your personality just for a girl. He understood it less if the goal was just to get laid instead of dating. What he did understand was being uncomfortable in his own skin. He’d felt out of place living in Texas almost his entire life. About his career, for one thing. He'd had his share of hang ups about being skinny, about being gangly and gawky and ugly, but if he hadn't gotten past those issues he had at least accepted the bulk of them. He couldn't have been paid to change himself now-- even when it came to the lingering bits that he hated. They were all his.

And well, in the end all of it was more emotional than physical. And maybe in some horribly ironic way he belonged more to Texas than California in this regard: He didn’t know much about talking feelings. He knew all about writing them down in nice songs in ways that got him derided in Texas, but those weren't things he discussed with anyone. He only ever had to work out his own feelings, when it came to songs, not those of someone else. When it came to talking, it had to be the result of something. Something real, something he could see with his own eyes. If he saw Micky fall down and hiss in pain, he would know where to go with that. He’d never really learned how to ask after emotional hurts. He didn’t know how to ask, ‘Were you worried about a girl liking you, or do you not like you?’. That was an entirely different thing. Whenever anyone played Freud around the pad, it was Micky, Mr. California, Mr. Emotions himself.

“So, I can go?” Micky asked happily, rising up from his seat.

“For now,” Mike decided. “But consider yourself grounded.”

“Grounded!”

“For a week. No goin’ out for nothing except playing gigs.” Maybe that wouldn’t be enough time for Mike to learn how to ask that important question. But he could at least keep an eye on Micky and see if he did anything else concerning.

Micky groaned. He fell back into his chair and promptly slid out of it onto the floor. “Fine,” he said, disgruntled, staring at the ceiling.

“I wouldn’t lay down there,” Mike said, peering at Micky over the edge of the table. “I’m the only one who mops.”

“You’re telling me,” Micky grumbled. He tried lifting an arm, showing Mike that he was firmly stuck to the ground.

Mike helped pry him off of the floor, and together they went to bed.


End file.
